Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1887-03-12
A CONFESSION OF IGNORANCE

a CONFESSION OF IGNORANCE.
Referring to the disapproyal of the
stamp and label BILL and the refusal of the
Assembly to override the veto, the San
Francisco Chronicle, which is proverbially
day behind the age in all matters that
do not Immediately concern its own do
nestle economy, says:
Now that the Stamp Act has received its coup
de grace by the refusal of the Assembly TO pass
it over the Governors veto, it seems to be an APP
pr0priate time for the inquiry, How did it come
through both the Assembly and the Senate as if
1t had been creased, and public attention was
not called to its destructiveness until il was
actually in Governor Bartlett hands
There is general feeling of wonder to how
its fatal effect could have escaped the attention
of members in both houses who are acquainted
with public affairs and who are accustomed to
the construction of language.
Had that unstable sheet been half as at
tentive to the proceedings before and about
the Legislature as it pretends to be virtu-
Gus and philosophical, it would never
have been guilty of such exposure of its
gross ignorance, as the inquiry it suggests
establishes. How did it come to pass in
the first place? ~ BY the trucking of the
San Francisco delegation to the so-called
labor organizations. Afraid of them,
anxious to lick the dust before their feet
in order to gain their favor, that delega--
ton stood the chief friend of the vicious
measure. In precisely the same way,
when whisky demanded exemption from
like treatment with other business in the
matter of license taxation, the San Fran
cisco delegation crawled upon its belly be-
fore the power that moves political wheels,
fortifes political bossism and hedges about
most of the political corruption and venal
ity of the day. Had the Chronicle been
at all awake to what was Transporting be-
fore its eyes, it would have seen exactly
what was the matter"
1t would seem that only the Chronicle
failed to know that public attention
was called to the bill long prior to its
passage. The press of this city. some of
the press of San Francisco, and a number
of interior journals assailed the measure
before passage, exposing its rottenness and
warning the Legislature not to pass it.
The representative of the San Francisco
Board of Trade fairly made his home in
this city for weeks, for the sole purpose Of
battling that and its sister vicious meas
ures referring to the stamping and labelling
and dating of manufactures The debates
before the committees and in the houses
were current in the daily news reports,
subject TO no concealment about the Cap
itol, and thoroughly debated bv large
portion Of the press of the State. Yet the
Chronicle, forever blowing its own trumpet
and proclaiming itself an exponent of pub
lie opinion and Waterman upon the
walls of virtue, though never yindicating
its claims to high moral attributes, is sur
prised-and assumes that therefore the
public must be-that opposition to the
bill was so neglected, and that it should
have passed in the first place. The truth
Is, the fatal effect OF the bill escaped the
attention of no one" and no one is sur
prised except the Chronicle. Everybody
else knows that the terrorism of the trades
unions broodedoverth the Legislature. Every
one. knows they directed their servitOrs
to support the bill, and they obeyed, excus-
ing themselves by the open statement
upon the legislative floor that violations of
the /" law by such as the labor organiza-
tions saw fit to exempt would be winked
at. So far from there being general
feeling of wonder as to what arguments
were used to secure the passage of the bill,
the real wonder of the people is hat there
was enough Of the leaven of conscience in
the Assembly to prevent the mastering of
the necessary two-thirds vote to pass it de-
spite the veto.